The Canterbury Auction Galleries said the Evans family hopes that the auction will allow the bronzes to be cherished by a new generation of collectors from around the world and that some might find their way back to collectors in China.

Over 150 years after the ransacking and destruction of the Summer Palace, there have been efforts from Beijing to recover stolen art and relics.

In 2009, China announced plans to send a team of specialists to museums and libraries - including the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London – in an attempt to catalogue items that were taken.

That same year, auction house Christie’s was asked by China to withdraw two Qing dynasty bronze animal heads believed to have been taken from the Summer Palace, one depicting a rabbit and the other a rat, from its sale of Yves Saint Laurent’s collection in Paris.

At the time, Christie’s said the sale was legal and went ahead with the auction, but the Chinese buyer refused to pay for them.

In June 2013, Francois-Henri Pinault, owner of Christie’s, returned the two bronze heads to China in a move to strengthen diplomatic and trade ties between France and China. They were put in the National Museum in Beijing.

It is also thought many treasures have been acquired by Chinese businessmen with the aim of repatriating them.

In 2007, Macao billionaire Stanley Ho paid around $9 million for a bronze horse’s head, believed to have been taken from the Summer Palace, and donated it to China.

According to the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO, about 1.64 million Chinese relics are housed in more than 200 museums in 47 countries.

The Chinese Cultural Relics Society estimates that China has lost more than 10 million antiques since 1840, due to wartime looting and illegal excavations.